December 11, 2019
My curl didn’t melt
Si Satchalanai Historical Park to Uttaradit
Dear little friends,
I discovered something of bio-interest while daydreaming on the porch of our homestay, Bruce mentions my Great Chipmunk Discovery and I am very proud of that. Being on a riverbank uncluttered with concrete or promenades is an increasingly rare thing in Thailand, so we enjoyed the heck out of the natural shoreline and plants, birds, and chirpy-song chipmunks. But the day was young, the homestay a bit above our usual budget, and the weather cool. It was pedalin’ time.
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First we retraced the route we had explored the day before at the edge of Si Satchanalai Historical Park, waving at the friendly guard who had offered us a map the day before. Our entire route to New Si Satchanalai was along the Yom River again, and I was really appreciating this wandering little river and its pathways and adorable bridges. The bridges reminded us of the many we crossed in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, of varying states of ricketiness but always charming.
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Way too soon we had to return to the highway, which is always a drag. We were glad to get to New Si Satchanalai and take care of our coffee needs at a rolling stand in front of the bus station. Then over the bridge into town and into the first noodle shop we saw, which was underwhelming for once. Not every broth is award-winning broth. Maybe that’s why we decided not to stay in New Si Satchanalai, that or the fact that we somehow missed the street to the resort I had scoped out and also maybe the fact that it was only 11:30 am and we had only gone 9.5 miles.
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We stopped at the junction and suddenly another cycle tourist was at our side, on a lightweight carbon bike and a bag big enough for two handkerchiefs and a toothbrush. Markus is Austrian and rides 120 miles a day and was on his way to Chiang Mai. We always enjoy meeting friendly bike people and chatted a bit and wished him well, he took off north at rocket speed and we went east on to Uttaradit at tuk-tuk speed. Back went the earplug into my ear. Sometimes you just go on the highway and get somewhere, it’s not my favorite way but it’s a way. It wasn’t roasting hot but it was definitely warm, the air was smoky, everything seemed dry and rattle-y.
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At the edge of Uttaradit is a big Tesco Lotus store and Bruce went in to restock our muesli and I waited with the bikes and sweated tiredly. Out he popped with a cute little Dairy Queen cone for me, I guess he knew I was feeling a bit dispirited. I grew up a block from a tiny small-town Dairy Queen back in the day when you could buy ten nickel cones and bring them home for a family of ten and you walked as fast as you could so the little curl on top didn’t melt because heaven help you if it did. Two quarters made a lot of people happy on a hot summer evening. Nobody can talk smack about Dairy Queen to me, my curl hadn’t melted and I was happy there in the radiant asphalt heat of a Tesco parking lot.
Hey, let’s stay in another Thai hotel instead of a bungalow resort because it has the word “Boutique” in its name. It was kind of in a weird place and they wouldn’t budge on the price so I went out on the porch and got the price I wanted on Agoda and we went back in and that was pretty much the extent of our exchange with the staff. I am still taken aback when hotel staff are markedly inhospitable but in this case it meant we could smuggle our bikes right past the desk and they did not look up from their phones so I guess we won that one.
We had decided it was time to send stuff home. Some of it was stuff we decided we didn’t need, such as rain gear and the high-viz vest I couldn’t bear to put on over my already hot shirts, and then there were items we had bought and didn’t want to carry for months with us. So it was off to the post office during the afternoon rush hour to buy a box, stopping in the midst of a food bustle at the end of our street to gaze at the riches ahead of us. Box in hand, or rather, strapped onto my bike rack, Bruce braved the tables of tray foods and grilled wonderful things and scored some market food for us to eat from our bowls back in the Sullen Boutique.
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The bikes got a rinse-off in the boutique bathroom with its luxury boutique moldy grout and air-dried on the balcony. Our balcony faced a sports complex where a lot of kids played soccer until the wee hours, long after I was asleep. I always sleep better when our bikes are with us, soccer whistles or no. And they make great clothes-drying racks too.
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Bruce packed up the box and I kept finding things for him to put in it, things buried at the bottom of panniers that I never seem to get to the bottom of ever so forgot were even with us. The box will take ten weeks by sea-mail to get to our doorstep and whenever we get home to open it we will have long forgotten what is in it, in fact I think I already have. It’ll be like Christmas, which when you forget things like I do, can be every day if you want it to be.
Today's ride: 33 miles (53 km)
Total: 449 miles (723 km)
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